Vote your hopes, not your fears

That title was a sign I saw on the way to work everyday in Seattle. It was spray painted under a bridge. For everything that Seattle lacks, its graffiti was better than ours.

That said, I figure I'll share this with you. I sent an email to 30 different news rganizatons to tell them what I think about blacking out third party candidates.

Here's what I said:

"Dear Editor,

My name is Molly Mullen. I am a journalism major at Creighton, and I love the media more than anything. I fight in support of it on a daily basis, standing up for us journalists for doing to the right thing and having outstanding morals.

It saddens me, then, to think of what has been happening this election season to third party candidates. For my college paper I have been working to interview every candidate on the ballot in Nebraska, not just the ones involved in the debates.

If I can do it, a student with two majors, 50 hours of work a week and the news editor of her paper, so can you.

We are the people's people. We work to give voices to the voiceless. We can change the world. Remember? All those reasons you became a journalist? Keeping the focus off third party candidates goes against our beliefs as reporters of truth.

As for your audience, the American public would love to see things get shaken up. They would love to see coverage and read reports of these candidates. That too, would force the two main candidates to answer harder questions, to look at their real differences and similarities.

As a newswoman, I urge you in these final weeks to give coverage to all candidates for the presidency, so the American voter can make an informed decision in the voting booth."


Sure I'm biased. I want Nader to get votes. But don't you think it's wrong that we're not allowed to make our own decision? Sunday will be a debate for third party candidates at Columbia University (McCain and Obama are also invited) but no news station other than C-Span will pick it up.